This invention relates to safety shoulder straps for high trousers, wherein the shoulder straps integrate a life jacket. These shoulder straps are intended to suit work dresses or high trousers used by professional seamen, high sea navigators, regatta sailors or fresh water ferrymen.
Inflatable safety life jackets in the shape of inverted U""s are already known. This type of life jacket is placed around the user""s neck and both U-shaped parallel branches are arranged on his torso in order to maintain his head and his face above water. A system of straps maintains the life jacket with a thoracic or ventral belt and anterior fasteners at the ends of both branches of the U and by at least one posterior fastener at the base of the U behind the neck, wherein the fasteners are attached to the belt. In normal situation, the life jacket is not inflated. In use, the life jacket is inflated, wherein the life jacket can be inflated using a compressed gas cylinder and/or by mouth. If using a compressed gas cylinder, inflating can be triggered either manually or automatically, wherein a triggering device senses the presence of water.
These life jackets are safety elements that must be checked regularly from the point of view of their tightness as well as the operation of the inflating members. These are also relatively expensive devices. On the other hand, in certain professional activities, for example fishing, it is necessary to wear safety equipment and in particular a life jacket, failing which the employee and the employer may be held liable for any accident. Still, although the life jackets have been improved enormously as well as regards their putting on as their comfort, certain employees prefer doing without them. Similarly in leisure activities, it is desirable to wear this type of equipment. It is therefore necessary to have life jackets that while remaining efficient, adhering to the safety standards, are simple to put in place, comfortable and, especially, necessary, since the users cannot do without them.
Besides, certain maritime activities may give rise to numerous incidents liable to damage life jackets, for example for a fisherman, who may be stung by a fish hook, the friction of a cable . . . It is therefore desirable to have life jackets that can be worn continuously and hence for prevention purposes, but that are relatively protected against external environment.
Finally, people in the maritime world are generally fitted with work dresses or high trousers, which are watertight and resistant clothes that protect them against an environment that may be aggressive. Later, the words high trousers are used in order to designate these different types of clothing that have in common at least one front extension above the waist, toward the thorax, of the user, wherein the front extension is then called a front flap. However, we shall also consider the high trousers fitted with a rear flap, i.e. on the user""s back.
This invention therefore suggests safety shoulder straps for high trousers, wherein the shoulder straps integrate a life jacket, wherein the shoulder straps and the life jacket must be placed in position in order to hold the trousers.
The invention comprises therefore safety straps for high trousers integrating a life jacket, wherein the life jacket is integral with a belt by at least one belt fastener, the trousers comprise at least one front flap and are held in position by straps.
According to the invention, the straps consist of a cover and of the inflatable life jacket, wherein the life jacket and the cover are generally shaped like an inverted U, in normal situation the cover envelops the life jacket between an internal layer against the user and an external layer opposed to the former, wherein the layers are connected along the internal edge of the U and removable fasteners are provided along the layers on the external edge of the U to allow quick opening of the cover; at the front the straps are fixed toward the top of the flap by two removable antero-lateral fasteners, wherein the antero-lateral fasteners are connected on the external layer of the cover at a distance from the extremities of both branches of the U; at the rear of the straps are fixed toward the top of the trousers by at least one removable postero-median fastener, wherein the postero-median fastener is connected to the base of the U provided on the rear and lateral sections of the user""s neck; and the trousers comprise approximately at the waist loops intended for accommodating the belt, wherein each extremity of both branches of the U contain the corresponding belt fastener.
In diverse embodiments of the invention, the following means, taken individually or in all their technically possible combinations, are implemented:
the loops are provided on the internal face of the trousers;
the extremities of the belt are accessible to the user on the external face of the trousers more or less on the user""s side for buckling by a belt clasp;
the extremities of the belt are accessible to the user on the external face of the trousers toward the front median section by a belt clasp to ensure tightness at the belt clasp that is overlapped by the front flap, wherein at least one loop is provided on either side of the belt clasp between the belt clasp and the corresponding belt fastener (when fastening and closing the belt, the front flap is not placed on the front of the user""s thorax and the user can still access the extremities of the belt);
the belt is removable;
the belt fasteners comprise loops, wherein the belt runs through the loops;
the postero-median fastener and the belt fasteners are connected to the life jacket in connection zones, wherein the postero-median fastener runs through an opening of the internal layer of the cover;
the life jacket and the cover are furthermore connected together at least in the following zones:
a connection zone of the postero-median fastener on the life jacket,
a connection zone of the belt fasteners on the life jacket;
the straps are adjustable, wherein at least one of the following means is implemented;
both antero-lateral fasteners are adjustable in length,
the postero-median fastener is adjustable in length,
both antero-lateral fasteners are made of an elastic material,
the postero-lateral fastener is made of an elastic material;
the antero-lateral fasteners are of the quick opening and closing type;
the postero-lateral fastener is of the quick opening and closing type;
the antero-lateral and postero-median removable fasteners comprise quick opening and closing means of specific shape preventing the use of straps other than the life jacket straps of the invention;
the antero-lateral and postero-median removable fasteners are incompatible together in order to prevent any inversion of the fastening direction of the straps;
the antero-lateral and postero-median removable fasteners are of male and female types, reverted with respect to one another in order to prevent any inversion of the fastening direction of the straps;
the removable fasteners arranged along the layers on the external edge of the U are of the VELCRO(copyright) type.
The invention also relates to high trousers comprising at least one front flap and held in place by straps, at the front the straps are fixed toward the top of the flap due to two removable antero-lateral fasteners and at the rear the straps are fixed toward the top of trousers thanks to a postero-median fastener.
According to the invention, the trousers comprise means according to any of the features listed previously and intended to accommodate straps according to any of the previous features.
Thanks to the invention, the trousers"" wearer must be fitted with a life jacket, failing which the trousers cannot be held in place. This device whose purpose is to hold the trousers in lieu of the conventional straps used on this type of high clothing, exhibits the particularity of accommodating a floating jacket folded in such a fashion that it can be integrated without any problems in its cover that serves as straps. The jacket can be triggered manually or automatically and has, preferably and in order to meet the European standards, a floatability of at least 150 Newtons. The life jacket is connected to the belt by fasteners, consequently the belt is one of the essential safety elements. This connection enables catching the shipwrecked person by the life jacket and/or a strap or handle on the front of the user without the safety unit moving dangerously or even, which is more serious, slipping above the user""s head. The device according to the invention forms therefore an assembly of the safety harness type that comprises a towing handle and that sustains loads along the applicable standards.
Finally, as the different fasteners are removable, on the one hand, the trousers can be put on by the user in various manners, whereas the straps are loosened only at the front or only at the rear or still totally loosened. On the other hand, in case when the trousers should be damaged or did not suit the usage contemplated. It is possible to preserve the straps and to change only the trousers for new ones or for ones of another type (if the fisherman becomes a regatta sailor for instance).
Within the framework of the invention, the expression postero-median fastener also concerns a single dorsal fastener as well as a set of dorsal fasteners, and, for example, two.